Patrick said he wanted to publicly thank the firefighters on behalf of the citizens of Massachusetts and the family of the worker they saved.

He said he was incredibly awed by the job that firefighters do every day.

Ed Rowe plunged through a thin piece of plywood covering a 2-foot-by-2-foot hole between the tracks at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s elevated Charles/Massachusetts General Hospital trolley station at about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday.

It took rescue workers more than 2 1/2 hours to pull out Rowe, who suffered severe leg injuries.